About the time you’ve made it through this morning’s report (and the deciphering of whatever it was I meant to spell here and there), I’ll be on my way to Tyler, Texas for a nice relaxing morning of dental surgery.
My regular dentist, an amiable guy — at least to the extent that someone coming at you with needles and sharp instruments can be viewed as amiable — informed me Monday that I have a nerve going dead in one of my upper back teeth that would be best treated by a ‘root canal specialist’. He put me on pain for drugs, but the most notable side effect of that has been putting aside the usual rum (or El Don) rations before the evening meal. I expect to be back to whatever passes for ‘normal’ around here next week one all the poking, prodding and prescribing passes.
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Since it’s the time of year when consulting lightens up, I’ve had time to fly a new ham radio antenna. I picked up one of the new dual-band (80 meter/ 40 meter) CCD antennas made by Dave Kelly, AI7R and sold at www.ccdantennas.com.
If you’re afflicted with ham radio disease, you’ll find my note to Dave extremely interesting. If, on the other hand, you’ve avoided the ham radio disease, you’ll be excused from finding my note to Dave ever so boring…
“I wanted to pass along a couple of installation note, because it may help others.
The first has to do with proximity effects around LARGE metal objects. I know the installation guide says once you get about 4-feet from things like metal gutters, the proximity effects of metal generally disappear. There’s a big BUT here – and that is what happens when you run over HUGE metal objects – like the 40 foot by 40 foot metal roof over my shop, office, and ham shack. Oh boy. Try 10-12 feet – or more.
Here’s a summary of SWR’s using the CCA mounted 5-6 feet above the metal roof, and then rehung putting it 15 feet above:
Freq.> Low Height> High Height
3990: 5.1 2.8
3800 3.2 1.7
3650 2.6 2.2
3505 2.2 3.8
As you can see, the proximity to the large metal roof seemed to detune the antenna 150-200 KHz lower.
On 40 meters the comparison was:
Freq.> Low Height> High Height
7005 5.2 1.3
7150 5.0 1.2
7290 5.2 2.2
In both cases, the feed line was LMR-400 and using an Icom 746 measuring SWR with a Drake MN-2700
The second item has to do with troubleshooting.
A group of old-timers I was chatting with on 75 today (>150-miles on 50 watts AM output midday on 75, I might add – thank you) reminded me that if someone ever runs into trouble with a CCD and needs to identify which of the caps has gone bad, should that ever occur, just grab a standard 4-foot fluorescent light and lower the antenna. Have someone key the transmitter at about 20-40 watts of CW and move the light bulb (not connected to anything) along the antenna. As you start from the middle and work outward, the last capacitor you go over before the light goes out is the problem.
Handy troubleshooting tip for the CCA users should we get heavy icing this winter.
Very happy with the antenna. Quieter than a 1-wavelngth 80 meter loop with a 40-meter decoupling stub which I compare it with, and the CCD is a half to full S unit better than the loop on most QSO’s. Which means people who are stuck in dipole or G5RV land will just have to chill out while I bag the DX first, thank you.
If I were putting together an all-time list of favor wire antennas now, my list would put the G5RV type down toward the bottom of the list. The full-size resonant or trap dipole type one notch up. From there, we go to the one wave length loops (mounted vertically) and at the top of the list is the CCD.
Signal reports on 75/80 last night were phenomenal – and while most stations out 500-1,000 miles could hear me S9 to 15 over barefoot (running just 100 watts from the Icom 746) with the linear on (an SB-221 that I’ve restored & tweaked to run nears the legal limit) the signal reports were 20-30 over S-9 about everywhere.
Two areas of further research: I’ve got the parts, just waiting on time and inclination, to fly a 570-foot diameter two wave length loop on 75 meters. Due to terrain (and being too cheap to rent a cherry picker and scalping off the southern pines up to 40-foot, which is how they’re supposed to be trimmer for good antenna use, the loop may only make it up 20-30 feet.
Still, using the EZNEC antenna modeling software, it appears that the multiple wave length loop will have significant gain on the high bands out toward the horizon. In one of the modeling runs, it looked to be 6-8 dbi at a 23-degree takeoff angle on the 20-meter band which would be nothing short of spectacular.
3 db means gain equal to doubling transmitter power, so 9 db would be like taking a 100-watt transmitter to 200-watts (3 db) then 400-watts (6 db) and then 800-watts (9 db) – see? If I told you the little ‘i’ stood for isotropic (looking top-down at an antenna pattern referenced to a standard 0 dB gain omnidirectional antenna) and the dB is an abbreviation for decibel, you’d be well on your way to a General Class ham ticket.
At least two of us in the Palestine (TX) ham radio club love BIG loop antennas because they can operate over a wide range of frequencies and exhibit some awesome gain; wire being cheaper than electricity and equipment. While the CCD antenna is great, it’s either a monobander (e.g. one band) or a dual bander, so it lacks the frequency agility of the big loops.
If you’ve managed to read this far, then might I suggest you consider something like a modest shortwave receiver as a ‘toy’ to play with over the holidays? There’s a certain joy of talking to people in other countries or hearing news from afar without the usual ‘mainstream media’ filtering that seems to occur.
About a year ago, I think it was on Steve Quayle’s radio program, I did something called “A Gentle intro to Radio Communications” and it’s still up here if you want more info.
The recommended starting point in ham radio would be the American Radio Relay League’s site, www.arrl.org. No, Morse code is no longer required to get a license to talk anywhere in the world, and I’ve started to nag Elaine to move from her Technician Class license up to General Class which requires a little more technical study and a test, but in return for that, you get global capabilities provided you figure out how antennas work.
Even without an interest in ham radio, though, I’m of the opinion that every family ought to have at least a decent shortwave radio and a crank-style NOAA weather radio for emergencies. If you live in Tornado Alley and you don’t have a weather alert radio, it’s almost like playing Russian Roulette voluntarily. With NOAA radios under $50 (under $25 now and then) it’s one of the cheapest investments in personal/family safety there is.
A visit to C. Crane’s store is a delightful way to spend a while if things are slow at work and you’re just ‘nibbling’ at the hobby. A good shortwave radio and a copy of Passport to World Band Radio, 2009 Edition
A bit of advice first, before you roll out some long green from that flash roll of hundreds you keep in your pocket?
If you live in a ‘big city’, get a cheap AM radio and tune if off to the ‘high side’ of the AM band. If you hear horrible noise there, your shortwave experience might be anywhere from suboptimal to horrible. In theory the FCC is supposed to ‘keep a lid on noise’ but as a practical matter, there’s enough noise from some TV’s, computers, neo signs, bad power lines, (and the list goes on) that a few minutes with an AM radio should let you know if the hobby is ‘workable’ in your present location.
If you can hear weak/distant AM stations at night, then the odds are good shortwave reception will be workable to some level. But, if all you can get on a fair AM radio is the 50-kilowatt clear channel station down the street, then maybe you oughta take up something else.
Having been a ham for (OMG) 46-years now (first licensed at age 13…), I can tell you that ham radio is sort of like sailboats, flying and driving a Porsche. Once you’ve got any of these diseases, they can only be controlled; you never really get rid of them.
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Times, budgets, and circumstance will occasionally put even the most worthwhile and robust of hobbies into remission. But come the holidays, time off, or a recession and the dreaded pink slip, a good hobby doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.
A few gardening tools and a hand-cranked shortwave setup – which anyone ought to be able to do for under $100 with a little creativity – will build your self-sufficiency, self confidence, and keep you well ahead of the pack when it comes to ‘whatever’s next.’
Bogslife and Tribing
A Lakota friend sends an interesting note, BTW, speaking of coping with the Year of Transformation which starts in about 13-days now…
“Hi George;
Some of my ancestors are Sioux, Lakota. I have to wonder why the gov. is creating a ‘National Reservation’ out of a once financially prosperous ‘American’ culture. (?) That’s not exactly what my other ancestors (The Scottish, the Irish and the Dutch) came to America from so far away, for.
But, look at the ‘Tent Cities’ and compare the sight to Tee Pees. “Say, that looks like a Tribe over there kids!” – Next thing ya know, they’ll be making and selling jewelry by the roadside. (Survival’s a bitch, sometimes.)
What were once happy homes with picket fences, are now just empty wooden boxes with invisible fencing. Those houses will decay and dissolve away in time … but what of that invisible gov. fence? What is to become of that ? – “Please, keep off the grass.”
My, how tables turn.
Indians only took what they needed. Millions of Buffalo were the proof of that. – Today, with millions and millions of people, we’ll be lucky if one bird survives the hunger pangs of the American people. – OK then, somebody has got to go. But who? Go where? WTF? … being Tribal, ain’t easy.
Gee, I hope people don’t go to Aztec, and start cutting the hearts out of virgins to appease the gods for the bad Karma left by the (once) PTB. ah, but that’s a ways away, eh?
Wonder if we’ll all get nice warm blankets with the influenza virus on it, like in the old days? – “Hey kids, get your Flu shots.” Actually, I think those in the know, have gone a little more high tech since WWII. – “Who farted? I smell gas!”
BTW, when do we get those Arrow Stocks from the 700 Billion Dollar Bailout Show? Thought those were our consolation Prize?
Yeah George, somebody threw in OUR towel. Oh hell, they never played fair to begin with. They came here, chased and killed off the Natives and put up For Sale signs. – Sound familiar? I wonder if there will be a Museum of America Culture, some day … or at least a Wing dedicated to America. Who knows, we might become a Legend, like Atlantis.
When this is all said and done … Last one to the Arctic Seed Vault is a rotten egg!
Keep your eyes peeled because the ‘retribing’ process is already underway. You see it under the freeway overpasses and well back on public lands where the overseers don’t get to often.
Something to keep an ear out for? The balladeers of the experience. The kind that Woody Guthrie represented as he was called the Dustbowl Troubadour in the First Depression, packing around a guitar that displayed the slogan “This machine kills fascists” on it. We’re sure to have a similar voice (or voices) for this one.
If you’re a documentary film maker, and you’re looking to ‘catch the wave’ of change, you might want to spend some time listening and taping out in the Bushvilles. The discussions are a murmur now, songs not yet loud, but the pitch seems likely to build as the pink slip presses jam into high gear once we get past “Christmas.”
The “New Year’ it ain’t. It’s one we’ve been through before and through a previous ‘New’ Deal. Like Guthrie said, “This Land is your land…“. Least it was, once upon a time… Have you got something written on your machine yet?
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How to Become an Economist: Slicing Your Own P.I.E.
Every now and then a friend of acquaintance will ask “How did you become an economist?” I tend to look at them with the evil eye and explain that I’m not really an economist – in the academic sense of the term – just a practical sort of fellow who works quite diligently at observing what’s in front of his own nose. The odds of me making it into the history books for ‘the’ breakthrough economic insight are pretty damn slim, if zero is slim. But, on the other hand, if I can do a Darwinian job of classifying evidence of the Second Depression, sorting it out, and trying to make sense of it, maybe a minor book on the subject some day would be useful. The plot line of such a book? Personal Indicators – Economic. P.I.E. for short; learning to see things as they are … where it matters – in your own back yard.
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What is better than a Christmas Card?
Why, sending an email to everyone in your ‘contact’ file and tell them about www.urbansurvival.com of course!
“Live on $10,000″ Updated
What? You haven’t ordered the ebook “How to Live on $10,000 a year — or less”? Suit yourself. We’re all going to live it shortly, anyway. I just thought you might like a heads up by reading about how to do it before you get pink-slipped. But, suit yourself OR visit www.liveontenthousand.com or, click one of the following button:
Yep – still possible. I also took a bit of additional material that was pertinent from recent issues of Peoplenomics and included them. The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the aforementioned dollar amount, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you make a little more than that and do some active savings… Click here for the page with more details on it.
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